« The white people spread their epidemic fumes throughout the entire forest…by tearing the gold and other minerals out of the earth. They do not want to give up their digging frenzy and their thought remains closed. All that matters to them is is cooking the metal to make merchandise.  Gold is nothing more than shiny dust in the mud, yet the white people can kill for that! It is not gold or merchandise that makes the plants grow or feeds and fattens the game we hunt!
All the white people’s merchandise will never be enough to exchange for the forest’s trees, fruits, animals and fish. The paper skins of their money will never be numerous enough to compensate for the value of its burned trees, its desiccated ground, and its dirty waters. Everything that grows and moves in the forest or under the waters, as well as the xapiri spirits and human beings, has a value far too important for the white people’s merchandise and money. Nothing is solid enough to restore the sick forest’s value. No merchandise can buy all the human beings devoured by the epidemic fumes. »

• Yanomami spokesman and shaman Davi Kopenawa

Gold mining and the indiscriminate use of mercury to ferret out gold are turning swaths of the world’s most biodiverse ecosystems into a nightmarish moonscape! 

Worldwide, illegal gold mining is more lucrative for criminal organizations, drug cartels, guerrilla groups and mafias than drug trafficking. For criminals posing as precious metals dealers, gold is the perfect medium for laundering illicit money from other illegal activities since illegal gold looks exactly like legal gold and the proceeds from selling it can be placed in the bank… 

As much as 75% of the gold extracted each year is used for jewelry, watches and other vain and futile status symbols sold by corporations in the luxury industry as well as discount retailers worldwide.  
Tens of thousands of rainforest trees must be uprooted, hundreds of tons of soil mined and mixed with dozens of tons of toxic environmental pollutants that contaminate Indigenous lands for that one special gold ring…

PLEASE DO NOT BUY OR USE GOLD!
Please give gifts that don’t destroy nature and the lives of Indigenous peoples!

PLEASE BOYCOTT GOLD!

How is illegal gold undermining forests and Indigenous peoples’ lives in the Amazon? Details on the connections between wild-cat mining and security are the subject of a video released by the Igarapé Institute. The material also presents how public and corporate policies can change this scenario to protect the Amazon rainforest and prevent irreversible climate collapse: